Anything Is Possible

Anything Is Possible tells the story of the inhabitants of rural, dusty Amgash, Illinois, the hometown of Lucy Barton, a successful New York writer who finally returns, after 17 years of absence, to visit the siblings she left behind. Reverberating with the deep bonds of family and the hope that comes with reconciliation, Anything Is Possible again underscores Elizabeth Strout's place as one of America's most respected and cherished authors.

The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir

Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working on the retrial defence of death-row convicted murderer and child molester Ricky Langley, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment Ricky's face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes, the moment she hears him speak of his crimes, she is overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by her reaction, she digs deeper and deeper into the case.

Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine

Eleanor Oliphant has learned how to survive - but not how to live. Eleanor Oliphant leads a simple life. She wears the same clothes to work every day, eats the same meal deal for lunch every day and buys the same two bottles of vodka to drink every weekend. Eleanor Oliphant is happy. Nothing is missing from her carefully timetabled life. Except, sometimes, everything. One simple act of kindness is about to shatter the walls Eleanor has built around herself. Now she must learn how to navigate the world....

Standard Deviation

Graham Cavanaugh's second wife, Audra, is everything his first wife was not. She considers herself privileged to live in the age of the hair towel; talks nonstop through her epidural, labour and delivery; invites the doorman to move in and the eccentric members of their son's Origami Club to Thanksgiving. She is charming and spontaneous and fun, but life with her can be exhausting. In the midst of the day-to-day difficulties and delights of marriage and raising a child with Asperger's, his first wife, Elspeth, reenters Graham's life.

The Dry

I just can't understand how someone like him could do something like that. Amid the worst drought to ravage Australia in a century, it hasn't rained in small country town Kiewarra for two years. Tensions in the community become unbearable when three members of the Hadler family are brutally murdered. Everyone thinks Luke Hadler, who committed suicide after slaughtering his wife and six-year-old son, is guilty.

The Marsh King's Daughter

When the notorious child abductor known as the Marsh King escapes from a maximum security prison, Helena immediately suspects that she and her two young daughters are in danger. No one, not even her husband, knows the truth about Helena's past: they don't know that she was born into captivity, that she had no contact with the outside world before the age of 12 - or that her father raised her to be a killer. And they don't know that the Marsh King can survive and hunt in the wilderness better than anyone....

Exquisite

Bo Luxton has it all - a loving family, a beautiful home in the Lake District and a clutch of best-selling books to her name. Enter Alice Dark, an aspiring writer who is drifting through life, with a series of dead-end jobs and a freeloading boyfriend. When they meet at a writers' retreat, the chemistry is instant, and a sinister relationship develops.... Or does it?

The Good People

County Kerry, Ireland, 1825. Nóra, bereft after the sudden death of her beloved husband, finds herself alone and caring for her young grandson Micheál. Micheál cannot speak and cannot walk, and Nóra is desperate to know what is wrong with him. What happened to the healthy, happy grandson she met when her daughter was still alive? Mary arrives in the valley to help Nóra just as the whispers are spreading: the stories of unexplained misfortunes, of illnesses, and the rumours that Micheál is a changeling child who is bringing bad luck to the valley.

Since We Fell

When she hit rock bottom, he was there with her every step of the way as she slowly regained her confidence - and her sanity. But his mysterious behaviour forces her to probe for the truth about her beloved husband. How can she feel certain that she ever knew him? And was she right to ever trust him? Since We Fell is a true masterpiece that will keep you in suspense until the very end.

Beneath the Surface

When the teenage son of Holly Gold's school friend brutally murders his parents before killing himself, her sleepy home town is rocked by the sudden tragedy. Appalled, Holly investigates. What could have caused the happy-go-lucky boy she remembers to commit such a heinous crime? When another teen commits suicide, she uncovers a horrifying link between the recent deaths and a dark conspiracy to hide the truth.

He Said/She Said

In the hushed aftermath of a total eclipse, Laura witnesses a brutal attack. She and her boyfriend, Kit, call the police, and in that moment it is not only the victim's life that is changed forever. Fifteen years on, Laura and Kit live in fear. And while Laura knows she was right to speak out, the events that follow have taught her that you can never see the whole picture: something - and someone - is always in the dark....

Little Deaths

It's the summer of 1965, and the streets of Queens, New York, shimmer in a heat wave. One July morning, Ruth Malone wakes to find a bedroom window wide open and her two young children missing. After a desperate search, the police make a horrifying discovery. Noting Ruth's perfectly made-up face and provocative clothing, the empty liquor bottles and love letters that litter her apartment, the detectives leap to convenient conclusions, fuelled by neighbourhood gossip and speculation.

Do Not Become Alarmed

When Liv and Nora decide to take their husbands and children on a holiday cruise, everyone is thrilled. The ship's comforts and possibilities seem infinite. But when they all go ashore in beautiful Central America, a series of minor mishaps lead the families further from the ship's safety. One minute the children are there, and the next they're gone. What follows is a heart-racing story told from the perspectives of the adults and the children as the distraught parents - now turning on one another and blaming themselves - try to recover their children and their shattered lives.

Under the Sun

Anna's friends and family think she is living the dream in her beautiful finca under the Spanish sun. But the reality is far from perfect. The handsome, complicated man she was building a life with has left with little more than a note to say good-bye, and the future she imagined has crashed around her ears. Anna has secretly embarked on an ill-advised affair and lives above the dingy bar she runs in the sleepy beach town of Marea, surrounded by British expats as homesick and stuck as she is.

The Last Act of Hattie Hoffman

Eighteen-year-old Hattie Hoffman is a talented actress, loved by everyone in her Minnesotan hometown. When she's found stabbed to death on the opening night of her school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of the community. Sheriff Del Goodman, a close friend of Hattie's dad, vows to find her killer, but the investigation yields more secrets than answers: it turns out Hattie played as many parts offstage as on.

The Party

Martin Gilmour is an outsider. When he wins a scholarship to Burtonbury School, he doesn't wear the right clothes or speak with the right kind of accent. But then he meets the dazzling, popular and wealthy Ben Fitzmaurice and gains admission to an exclusive world. Soon Martin is enjoying tennis parties and Easter egg hunts at the Fitzmaurice family's estate, as Ben becomes the brother he never had.

Based on a True Story

Overwhelmed by the huge success of her latest novel, exhausted and unable to begin writing her next book, Delphine meets L. L. is the kind of impeccable, sophisticated woman who fascinates Delphine - a woman with smooth hair and perfectly filed nails and a gift for saying the right thing. Delphine finds herself irresistibly drawn to her, their friendship growing as their meetings, notes and texts increase. But L. begins to dress like Delphine, and, in the face of Delphine's crippling inability to write, L. even offers to answer her emails, and their relationship rapidly intensifies.

The Night Visitor

Professor Olivia Sweetman has worked hard to achieve the life she loves, with a high-flying career as a TV presenter and historian, three children and a talented husband. But as she stands before a crowd at the launch of her new best seller, she can barely pretend to smile. Her life has spiralled into deceit, and if the truth comes out, she will lose everything. Only one person knows what Olivia has done.

Bette & Joan: The Divine Feud

This joint biography of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford follows Hollywood's most epic rivalry throughout their careers. They only worked together once, in the classic spine-chiller What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, and their violent hatred of each other as rival sisters was no act. In real life they fought over as many men as they did film roles.

The Child

When a paragraph in an evening newspaper reveals a decades-old tragedy, most readers barely give it a glance. But for three strangers, it's impossible to ignore. For one woman it's a reminder of the worst thing that ever happened to her. For another it's the dangerous possibility that her darkest secret is about to be discovered. And for a third, a journalist, it's the first clue in a hunt to uncover the truth. The Child's story will be told.

The Roanoke Girls

Lane Roanoke is 15 when she comes to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin at the Roanoke family's rural estate following the suicide of her mother. Over one long, hot summer, Lane experiences the benefits of being one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But what she doesn't know is being a Roanoke girl carries a terrible legacy: either the girls run, or they die. For there is darkness at the heart of Roanoke, and when Lane discovers its insidious pull, she must make her choice....

Stay with Me

Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child. When her in-laws insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair. Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of '80s Nigeria, Stay with Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayobami Adebayo weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood.

Sweetpea

Rhiannon is your average girl next door, settled with her boyfriend and little dog...but she's got a killer secret. Although her childhood was haunted by a famous crime, Rhinannon's life is normal now that her celebrity has dwindled. By day her job as an editorial assistant is demeaning and unsatisfying. By evening she dutifully listens to her friend's plans for marriage and babies whilst secretly making a list. A kill list.

Publisher's Summary

Haunting, gripping and gorgeously written, See What I Have Done by Sarah Schmidt is a reimagining of the unsolved American true crime case of the Lizzie Borden murders, for fans of Burial Rites and Making a Murderer.

When her father and stepmother are found brutally murdered on a summer morning in 1892, Lizzie Borden - thirty-two years old and still living at home - immediately becomes a suspect. But after a notorious trial, she is found innocent, and no one is ever convicted of the crime. Meanwhile, others in the claustrophobic Borden household have their own motives and their own stories to tell: Lizzie's unmarried older sister, a put-upon Irish housemaid, and a boy hired by Lizzie's uncle to take care of a problem.

This unforgettable debut makes you question the truth behind one of the great unsolved mysteries as well as exploring power, violence and the harsh realities of being a woman in late 19th-century America.

I have to say I found Lizzie Borden's character detestable even though there were instances where her father's harsh behaviour showed. She is manipulative and spoilt, a classic sociopath and while the murderer is never openly stated, it seems very likely she had a hand in it. I felt extremely sorry for her elder sister Emma, who seems to have to put up with her behaviour. Either way, I don't feel this novel added much to this infamous tale.

You might have thought that enough has been written about the 1892 murder of Andrew and Abby Borden, brutally axed in their home in Falls River, Massachusetts, and the trial of Mr Borden’s youngest daughter Lizzie. Sarah Schmidt’s visceral first novel is now added to the pile and adds another dimension to the unsolved case but, like all the rest, she can only conjecture more than 100 years after Lizzie was acquitted of murder who really did commit it. But she does that very well.

The pleasure is in the picture Schmidt creates of the stifling, unhealthy Borden household. Emma and her younger sister Lizzie Borden are in their early thirties living with their overbearing and harsh father Andrew (Emma calls him a ‘vile man’), their much unloved step-mother Abby, and the homesick Irish maid Bridget. They share this ‘home’ seething with ill feeling, resentment, anger, casual cruelty, frustrations and jealousy, as well as foul stenches (you need a strong stomach for many of them) and poisonous sulphurous atmosphere (both literal and metaphorical) trapped in the fetid heat. The relationship between Lizzie and Emma is bound by inter-dependence, fierce love, mutual loathing and distrust and is powerfully portrayed leaving us with the strong suspicion that Lizzie could indeed have been the murderer. But nothing is that simple…

Apart from Lizzie and Emma, there were other severely disgruntled members of the larger family – an uncle, Mr Borden’s abandoned illegitimate son – with their jealous eyes on the Borden property, and Schmidt makes their testimony part of this chilling re-telling. Bridget the Irish house servant has a narrative voice of her own and she is a fully rounded and sympathetic character caught in this super-dysfunctional family desperate to escape back to her own family in Ireland.

Mostly Schmidt keeps to the ‘facts’ of the case – Mr Borden slaughtering the pigeons which Lizzie loved; the process of the Trial; a hint of lesbianism in Lizzie, and so on. When she adds fiction she goes – for me – totally wrong. Emma is supposed to be marrying Samuel and the pre-marital sex between the two of them is completely incredible for the early 1890s both as fact and in virgin Emma’s sexual technique. There are many such anachronisms which irritated me: no-one had duvets in the early 1890s, nor did they constantly use the phrase ‘any time soon’!

Next time, it would be interesting to see how well Schmidt can write without the scaffolding of real-life events which have been written about so much before. The three narrators do an excellent job in creating the very different complex personalities.